AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They continued walking until she came to an abrupt stop in front of one of the concession stands. Tate stopped in his tracks and shot Cassidy a look of confusion.
She pointed to the concession stand. “Do you mind if I stop and get some cotton candy?”
A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You still love the pink sticky stuff, huh?”
Cassidy rubbed her stomach and licked her lips. “You have no idea,” she answered. “Visions of cotton candy have been dancing around in my head all day.”
“Knock yourself out,” Tate said as he stepped into the line alongside her.
As soon as the confection was placed in her hand, she began to attack it with gusto. She held it out and offered it to Tate, who crinkled up his face in response. Cassidy shrugged, then kept on eating the sweat treat, finishing it in a matter of minutes.
He led her through the livestock enclosure as a shortcut toward getting back to the wishing tree. Cassidy paused for a moment to admire a brood of piglets sucking noisily at their mama’s teats.
“You’ve got some cotton candy on your face,” Tate said with a grin. “You always did end up wearing more of it than you ate.”
His words resurrected old memories of their high school days, as well as all the church bazaars and carnivals they’d attended together. For Cassidy it almost felt as if they’d stepped back in time to the familiar rhythms of adolescence.
This is the way we were, she thought, before the bottom fell out of our world.
Tate reached out and wiped the cotton candy off her chin and lips, his fingers lingering a bit longer than necessary. She looked up at him, marveling at the way he made her feel. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so lighthearted, so joyful. And judging by the way he was looking at her, his eyes twinkling with glee, he felt the same way. For the moment it seemed as if all his anger toward her had faded away.
“And you were always there to wipe it off my face,” she countered. “Or kiss it off.”
As soon as the words rolled off her tongue, she wanted to yank them back in. She’d gotten carried away by their carefree banter and fallen into the familiar rhythms they’d once shared as a couple. Eight years ago it would’ve been nothing to make a comment like that. But now? After everything that had happened, it seemed flippant and overly familiar.
Tate’s guarded expression said it all. She’d gone too far.
The air suddenly felt charged with electricity as Tate fidgeted with his collar and shifted his gaze to the ground. “That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.”
Her cheeks felt flushed, and she raised her palms to her face. “I know it was. I’m so sorry I brought that up. The bazaar, the cotton candy, being back home...it’s bringing back a lot of memories,” she explained as embarrassment flowed through her at her forward comment.
He brushed his hand across his face and let out a sigh. “It’s not your fault. I got caught up in the past, too. Being with you reminds me of how things used to be. But those are just memories. Here and now, you and I are strangers.” His face hardened, his mouth tightened. There was a hard edge to his voice. “You made sure of that when you ran away and never looked back.” He let out a harsh laugh. “That’s the way you wanted it, wasn’t it? I think you called it closure.”
His words
were like daggers to her heart. Strangers? They’d grown up together, loved each other, had planned to spend the rest of their lives together. Did he truly believe she’d wanted the two of them to be strangers? Had she really used the word closure when she’d ended their engagement? It sounded so cold, so unfeeling under the circumstances.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he huffed. “I can’t do this right now.” His face resembled a storm cloud about to burst as he strode past her.
“Wait. Tate, please don’t go. I need to talk to you,” she pleaded.
There are so many things I never got to say. So many apologies I have yet to put into words.
He shook his head. “There’s really nothing more to talk about. I respect the reasons why you came back, but it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“We have everything to talk about. The accident, why I left town, Holly.”
He sliced his hand through the air. “That’s all in the past. I’ve moved on.”
Moved on? She was pretty sure Tate hadn’t moved on. His anger toward her showed that he still had a lot of stuff he was holding on to. Not that she could blame him. He’d been in the middle of the firestorm and gotten burned at both ends. He had every right to resent her, but he needed to own it rather than pretend it was all in the past, dead and buried.
“I guess I haven’t moved on, not completely,” she admitted. “I know I can’t change the past, but I can try and make amends for what I did. To Holly. And your family. And you.”
Tate clenched his fists. “Nothing can be served by dredging all this up. If you need to make amends, do that with God, Cassidy. It’s a little too late to come looking for forgiveness.”
Too late for forgiveness? How could that be? Although she struggled with the notion that she was worthy of forgiveness, she knew it was possible. Every time she read the Bible she sought out scriptures to support the idea of being forgiven. No Bible passage said it more eloquently than Matthew 6:12. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
Tate’s words shocked her to the core. She’d expected anger from him, but she hadn’t anticipated him drawing a line in the sand, one he’d never allow her to cross over. She could only imagine his fury if the truth about the accident ever came to light.
